louised

I have just returned from taking an extra maths class with a year 9 group. I am not a maths teacher and my knowledge of Trigonometry is basic. The assignment set involved using a tape measure and an inclinometer to calculate the height of a variety of buildings / trees etc using trigonometric functions. One [...]

Participants at HHL09 in London in October were asked about their understandings and experiences with augmented reality.  Futurelab Learning Researcher Richard Sandford spoke to teachers and industry experts about the idea of augmented reality and how it can be applied to learning through location based applications and games. This podcast is part of the latest [...]

Today I visited Muir Woods, North of San Francisco. As I took the $1.00 map and tour guide from the repository provided, I wondered about the possibilities for something such as “The Answer Tree’ to exist for a visit to the Muir Woods National Monument. So I started exploring the possibility of creating a Google [...]

My day at Chatsmore Catholic High School, West Sussex, UK was jam packed with meeting people with a firm grip on moving education for the 21st century forward, with a sound base and carefully thought out implementation. The school operates on a combination of PC and Mac platforms, with a wonderful new Mac multi-media lab [...]

After reading this quote on Twitter “I spend hours reading about mlearning. Why aren’t schools listening?” and watching the above video, we can’t ignore this question.

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Here is another wonderful video tutorial from Tony Vincent using the iPod touch. You can also read the transcript at his Learning in Hand website. This activity has great potential to change the way we conduct virtual field trips in our schools. The number of learning outcomes an activity such as this would encompass is [...]

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Time in the classroom passes quickly. Sometimes, despite your best efforts and preparation, there are unwarranted distractions, or too many students to connect with individually. Sometimes, we need a way to engage with our students after they have left our classrooms. This is one way a carefully integrated mobile learning strategy has proved to [...]

I came upon this recently posted article on IEAR tonight about syncing iPods.



This unit, which will sync 20 iPods at a time to one iTunes library is made by PARAT solutions.

I would certainly be interested in something like this as syncing on my Lenovo Thinkpad R60 can be a chore.

My MacBook pro is certainly much faster at backing up iPods before they are synced. We have 8 new Gen 2 iPod touches this week for our PL staff which I synced one at a time last night.

At least the teachers have all gone home this weekend with a big smile on their faces! Just imagine the time saved with this unit. I have also investigated the ipod cart, used by Culbreth Middle School NC, but these only seem to be available in the United States.

I also use playlists in iTunes to manually drag and drop selections of audio and video resources onto students' iPods, without any syncing at all. This lends itself well to the personalised approach to learning when each student in my class is working on a different project.

The final plans for the Lindsay Thompson Fellowship research tour are falling into place. I have made a Google Map outlining the Journey and will add to it as I travel. The video below shows how it is constructed using Google Maps.

View Lindsay Thompson Fellowship 2009 in a larger map






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I was recently visiting the Education Apps Review site and was intrigued to read about the Brushes craze that is sweeping the world. Of course, I had to have it instantly for my class. My students aren't yet ready to contribute their artwork to the front cover of a magazine, as shown in 'The New Yorker' here, and there is a varying range of skills.

We are currently working on creating a gallery of rainforest animals.

You can read some media reviews about the Brushes App here and here.

Still working on the Thinkfree Viewer plugin!! Any suggestions most welcome.

rainforest-animals

I have been documenting the highs and lows of using the iPod Touch with Year 8 students since July of 2008. Please visit the original blog hosted by Studywiz here.



There was just too much to re-post, but this slideshare is worth a look.
Personalising Learning With The I Pod TouchView more OpenOffice presentations from louiseduncan.

This is a collection of links on mobile learning gathered while preparing a project outline for the 2009 Lindsay Thompson Fellowship. The first link and embedded YouTube video about the iSchool Initiative established by 18 year old student Travis Allen is going to be huge. Watch, share and follow!

1. The ischool initiative





2. The Mobile Academic Platform

3. Learner Bytes

4. ieducation wiki

5. Mobile Learning

6. mLearning - a Flickr Gallery

7. Apple Education - Mobile Learning

8. mLearn 2009

9. An iPod Touch for each student?

10. EdTechBytes

Last night I was lucky enough to be awake as the Web 2.0 'smackdown' commenced at the Edublogger conference in Washington DC, preceding the NECC Conference this week. In this session, educators line up to demonstrate a social networking / Web 2.0 tool. It was streamed live on 'Ustream' and 'CoverIt live'. One useful tool was Fur.ly, which enables you to post multiple URLs in one, so here are some of the suggestions from the Web 2.0 'smackdown'. As the saying goes, fill your boots...

EdubloggerCon 2009 Web 2.0 Smackdown

Oh, and watch this too.

Livestream recording

It is Sunday morning again, and the house remains in slumber so I can continue with my fantastic journey into the exploration of mobile learning . Overnight this blog was linked to another insightful collection of links at The Mobile Learner which is definitely worth reading.

The new term will bring new challenges as I face decisions about our school's future 1-to-1 policies. Where does the iPod Touch fit in with the netbook as the preferred device for our students to own?

To fully explore the educational potential of the iPod Touch this term, I am going to initiate some changes this week. One of the main issues I have faced with the device is the potential for some of my less focussed students to be using the games installed on the iPods when they should be using them for other purposes. The next Sync will see a removal of these distractions such as 'Jelly Car' and 'Tap Tap Revenge'. The ability of the students to download their own apps can also be curtailed by the restrictions. Their will be an outcry, which I will report on here, but hopefully the few offenders will gain from this move. After the first six months last year, we also decided that listening to music in class time was also a distraction and have stopped this practice. This does not seem to have affected this years group of students at all. Students who reach personal goals and contribute to the resources we are sharing on the iPod Touch, such as podcasts, video reviews of apps, image galleries, contribution to discussions etc, may earn some of these games back...

I would like to target some individual students with selected Apps this term too. Our theme this term in PL is 'Imagine' which provides a broad canvas for creativity and opportunities for students to create resources that can be shared and showcased on the iPods. For example, after reading all my class reports at the end of last term, I have identified three boys who are excelling with their guitar class. After watching the  'Tweetwood

iPhone and mobile devices in educationView more presentations from olliebray.

Today I discovered that I had painted myself into a corner by setting restrictions on the students iPods to disallow them to download Apps. This is fine, so long as you change this setting before attempting to sync with a class set of iPods. I set my two year 11 boys to this task today, and they (and me) didn't figure this out. Now, in the peace and tranquilty of the evening, I am syncing iPods, successfully, as I pack for my weekend away in Broome.

Some help from Apple on the subject...

Today we installed some new Apps -
EPSN Spelling Bee (thanks to Tony Vincent's Tweet),
Brushes (more on that in a minute),
Pocket God (because some of my lovely year 8 boys begged me) and
iBeatBox.

The Studywiz Mobile eLocker is also going on in anticipation.

There is also a new animations playlist with some animated clips from YouTube to generate some written work in English. There is a 'Brushes' video playlist too, with some inspirational brushes clips to generate ideas on how to use the new Brushes App.

Our Geography teacher is going to hand out the iPods in Geography in the morning and the students are going to draw the endangered rainforest animal they are researching. All of these images will be placed on a Studywiz Gallery (yes, we will share them with the Global Community) for you to see. :)

Here is Jonathan Nalder's ITSC presentation. (very cool!)


Here is Jenny Ashby's iPod iLearn presentation from ITSC Melbourne.
iPod iLearn